patent lawyer

SAN FRANCISCO ―Apple Inc.’s chief patent counsel will soon leave the company, at a time when the iPhone maker is fighting numerous legal battles around the world, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Apple is engaged in an expanding web of litigation concerning smartphone patents, mostly with phonemakers using Google’s rival Android software.

It was unclear why Richard “Chip” Lutton Jr., who manages the iPhone maker’s patent portfolio, is leaving the company.

However, BJ Watrous, a former deputy general counsel with Hewlett Packard, is now listed as Apple’s chief IP counsel on Watrous’s LinkedIn web page.

Legal battles have become common in the cellphone industry since Google entered the market with its free Android operating system, grabbing a big chunk of the lucrative and fast-growing smartphone market.

Android has become the world’s No. 1 mobile software platform this year.xxMany ongoing legal fights include software patents, and can be seen as indirect attacks against Google’s Android, but Apple is attacking Samsung Electronics also for copying its design.xxLast month, Apple joined with Microsoft Corp, Blackberry maker Research In Motion Ltd and three other tech companies to outbid Google in a $4.5 billion deal to acquire a huge portfolio of some 6,000 technology patents from failed telecoms group Nortel Networks.

Last week, Apple filed a second patent complaint against fast-growing rival HTC, a Taiwanese smartphone maker, with a U.S. trade panel.

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